1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to laying out game playing fields and, more particularly, is concerned with a grass line mowing apparatus employed to cut boundary lines in the grass of the playing field.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In team sports such as volleyball, football and soccer, visible boundary lines are necessary for the players and officials to be able to easily distinguish in-bounds from out-of-bounds areas of the playing field. The same is equally true for many other activities conducted at school and municipal playgrounds to divide play areas for safety or where starting and finishing lines are needed. For volleyball, football and soccer playing fields, the boundaries are composed of straight lines in rectangular patterns. Other playground and school activities typically utilize both straight lines and circles for playing games or to make patterns and designs on the grass.
Traditional practices for laying out boundary lines on playing fields having natural grass have been to apply a fluid chemical, for example kerosene, to kill or retard growth of the grass to make the desired line, or to apply chalk or paint to make the line on the grass.
These traditional practices have several drawbacks. One drawback is that the application of a fluid chemical, such as kerosene, that is detrimental to the survival or growth of grass is typically toxic to humans also. This fluid also increases the risk of polluting ground water. As a result, many jurisdictions have banned the use of such fluid chemicals for this purpose. Another drawback is that chalk and paint wear or wash away quite easily and so must be reapplied frequently. In light of the drawbacks of these traditional practices, it would be desirable to find an ecologically sound, economical and non-toxic way to make game boundary lines in the playing field grass.
One approach might be to employ an edger apparatus for this purpose. Different edger attachments are known in the prior patent art for trimming grass along sidwalks, driveways, street curbs and the like. Representative of these edger attachments are the apparatuses disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,421,300 to Rhodes, U.S. Pat. No. 3,686,839 to Lambert, U.S. Pat. No. 3,693,333 to Bishop, U.S. Pat. No. 3,693,334 to Lowery, U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,818 to Chaney, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,028 to Dawson, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,528,805 to Zitta, U.S. Pat. No. 4,852,658 to Wessel et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,573 to Williamson. However, none of these apparatuses is seen as a workable solution to the problem of how to satisfactorily provide the desired boundary lines for grass playing fields.
Consequently, a need exists for an alternative approach to providing playing field boundary lines in grass which avoids the limitations and drawbacks of the traditional practices.